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Becoming Led Zeppelin is a superb documentary about the great band, told in their own words, and with stories aplenty, from when they were growing up as kids just after World War II, then as teenagers in the ’50s, including Jimmy Page being introduced to the guitar by school friend Rod Wyatt.
Meanwhile, Robert Plant tells us how he loved school, but was distracted by Little Richard’s antics on TV, such as putting one leg up on the piano while still playing it brilliantly.
John Paul Jones played the bass guitar for the band, although was initially put off by his Dad, who recommended he take up the saxophone, claiming he’d never be short of work with that instrument… well, maybe if he was Lisa Simpson.
John Bonham rarely gave interviews and died in 1980 after driving an obscene amount of alcohol in one day, but there’s still some audio recordings, which are included here.
This film shows how Jones and Page – starting off as session musicians, even playing on Shirley Bassey’s Goldfinger – were Jacks of all trades, and masters of all of them!
Plus, while growing up, Page didn’t like pop singles, and preferred radio stations that played the whole of an album, only stopping to talk inbetween sides, hence why they were never a singles band and didn’t release a single single!
While Becoming Led Zeppelin shows a fair bit from their formative years, when we get to the band actually being formed in 1968, this film only takes in just their first two years, initially showing on Danish TV how Plant proved his singing strength, with the rest having immense instrumental talent.
They also made the albums themselves, in full, from start to finish, so they had complete authority over Atlantic Records as to how they could release and market them, hence insisting upon no singles being released.
Given how in-depth Becoming Led Zeppelin is, with the copious amount of archive footage – showing how amazing it is that how much of this was captured at the time – and engaging stories from the band, and since this film only covers two years of their band’s lifetime – including their early 1969 tour, where they’re touring their first album, having been released in the US, but hadn’t yet come out in the UK; as well as April 1969’s inception of Whole Lotta Love – I do hope we get a follow-up to this. In fact, it was only after it ended that I realised we hadn’t even got to Stairway To Heaven!
As an aside, like my Dad, Robert Plant trained as an accountant, although I can’t imagine Dad still getting up on stage in his late ’70s and belting out Whole Lotta Love!
Additionally, I’ve seen references to a 137-minute running time, both on Wikipedia and even Odeon’s own website, yet IMDB lists the correct length of 121 minutes, which is also what Odeon programmed into their system.
Initially, this film was released exclusively in IMAX for the first two days of release, before adding in regular screens, and I saw it in one of the latter. Given that the archive footage is obviously very old, there’s no aspect ratio changes in the film, and obviously there won’t any reason for it to be 3D in IMAX, all you’ll get in an IMAX screen is it being ‘one louder’.
NOTE: There are no mid- or post-credit scenes, but music from the band is played during the credits.
Becoming Led Zeppelin is in cinemas now, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD. However, once announced, it will appear on the New DVD Blu-ray 3D and 4K releases UK list.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 121 minutes
Release date: February 5th 2025
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Rating: 8/10
Director: Bernard MacMahon
Producers: Ged Doherty, Duke Erikson, Bernard MacMahon, Allison McGourty
Writers: Bernard MacMahon, Allison McGourty
Cast:
Jimmy Page
Robert Plant
John Paul Jones
John Bonham (archive footage)
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.